Need help with Fleck 7000SXT programming

I recently purchased a 48K, 1.5 cu ft Fleck 7000SXT water softener to replace my old kenmoore system that finally died, after 8 years. I've programmed it myself from what I learned on this forum but i'm not getting the water as soft as it was before. When showing the water is mostly soft but I can still feel some hardness in the water. I'm sure this softener should works better than my old one.

I've tested the water at the well and it has a hardness of 20 grains with 3 grains of iron. I tested the water inside the house and it was a hardness of about 3 grains. I'm not sure if it should be zero or if 3 is normal. There are 2 people living in the house and use about 180 gal/day. I started with 6 lbs of salt per cu ft of resin, 9 lbs total, and have slowly increased it to 15 lbs per cu ft, or 21 lbs total.

Non pro. Took a look at the manual, and here are some comments... probably not useful.

Dropping to 3 grains from 20 is not so good in my opinion. Is that sample from cold water, or from hot which might have sat in the tank for a while after you added the softener? I test 1 or less on harder water than you on what seems like a very old softener.

I think you are setting this to regen every 7 days, or sooner if you have a lot of use. There are diagnostics like HR Hours in Service since the last regeneration cycle. VU is volume used since last regen. I presume that is gallons, but their example of 25,000 seems very high.

Are you sampling the day after a regen, or the day before a regen,.

Is about 7 pounds of salt disappearing from the brine tank each regen? I bring that up in case you have a salt bridge or some other thing limiting the brine flow.

3 grains or iron? Do you mean 3 PPM of iron? If so, each ppm of iron should be compensated at 5 grains, so you would add 15 grains to your actual hardness. And you should use a high salt setting, 10+ pounds per cu.ft. and I would recommend using iron out salt or a regular cleaning of the resin bed should be done. Or... get an iron removal system ahead of the softener.

JimmyG, you should click on the link in my signature. Actually ya shoulda done it before buying the new softener because you are going to get terrible salt efficiency with a 1.5'. And understand that most here do not have much experience in removing iron with a softener and would rather have people buy an iron filter and a softener. Use 4 gpg per ppm of iron and 3000 grains per lb of salt to calculate the K of capacity/gallons between regenerations and use regular solar salt. Then every 6 weeks do a manual regeneration after mixing a 1/4 cup of Iron Out in a couple gallons of water and pour it into the water in the brine well in the salt tank and your softener will do a fine job removing your 3 ppm of iron. You can buy 5 lbs IIRC of Iron Out or Super IO at most grocery or big box stores. It is a much better way to keep all parts of the softener iron free and overall it costs less than the IO salt.

Most of us here have a whole lot of experience using a softener to remove iron which is why most of us don't recommend using a softener to remove iron. However, Iron or not, your salt efficiency and water efficiency is going to suck big time.

Wow, we have no experience removing iron with a softener???? LOL. Like Tom said, because we do have real world experience and knowledge and training and certifications and education and we can use a calculator and common sense is why we dont recommend a softener for higher levels of iron removal. In theory, you could do 20 PPM iron with a softener, but that would not be a wise design choice. Your system is undersized for this application. Some people on this forum have no considerations for the environmental impact water softeners can have especially on inland water supplies. It is true that a single residentail application has almost ne real world impact, but commercial users of softeners, and large amounts of residential users do have an impact on the water supplies. Using a softener for iron removal is one of the most inefficient ways to treat iron. It is also fairly cheap since you already have a softener, it can do double duty.

While you are at it, how is your sulfur or manganese? You can do more than one at once if you have those.

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I see two choices. You can treat your iron with a separate filter which is what I recommend although it is the more expensive option. Option two would be to increase the amount of resin which will increase your capacity. The 7000 valve will be fine, you just need to change the tank and resin. The third option is too use a lot of salt and water.

I haven't checked it but I know the sulfur is high. Without the softener you can smell and taste it. Does that add to the water hardness?

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If the smell goes away when the softener is working, then most likely the smell is due to the iron. With high iron, I tell people that want to only use a softener to remove it, "You can move a ton of material with a half ton truck, but how long will the truck last doing it"?

JimmyG, The ppm of iron is not all that much iron unless you are comparing to no iron 'city' water. And your 3 * 4 = 12 gpg compensated hardness + your 20 gpg of hardness is not going to cause your softener to be less efficient than if you had 32 gpg of hardness and no iron. The only difference is that you would have to use a resin cleaner like Iron Out periodically or eventually the iron will foul the resin, that will reduce the capacity and that would allow hard water through before regeneration and you'll be changing things so as to regenerate sooner and sooner until you fix the problem (replace the resin).

You bought an undersized softener for your water usage and 32 gpg compensated hardness. I didn't do the math but it may be too small for great salt and water efficiency for your water use and 20 gpg. So, based on that and that you say there is H2S gas... I say you need a backwashed filter that will remove iron and H2S, IF you really have H2S. You may not and you may have IRB (iron or other reducing bacteria that cause odor) and then you need a disinfectant like chlorine and a backwashed filter to remove it and sediment caused by oxidation of the bacteria and iron. That all goes before the softener. As part of a system like that you'd have to have a correctly sized retention tank also.

Is this H2S odor in both hot and cold water or one or the other? If it is in the hot only, you have a bacteria problem, not H2S gas, and as mentioned, if the odor goes away after the softener, you are confusing iron with H2S or other odor. If it is in the hot only, raising the temp on the water heater to 140f for an hour or two kills the bacteria for a time and then it comes back (that can be days to normally weeks) and you do it again.

If the smell goes away when the softener is working, then most likely the smell is due to the iron. With high iron, I tell people that want to only use a softener to remove it, "You can move a ton of material with a half ton truck, but how long will the truck last doing it"?

I also am in need of a programming review of my Fleck 7000SXT, 48,000 capacity. I installed it myself, replaced a Northstar all-in-one tank system. Iâ€™ve been using the new Fleck about 5 months now. I am having the same issues as the original thread creator, some soft water noticeable but not like the Northstar. Soft water pellets are barely disappearing after 5 months.

I tested the water before and after the Fleck using a HACH Hardness test kit. I show 14 grains/GAL before the softener, 11 grains/GAL at the kitchen faucet. I had the water tested twice for iron â€“ both showed negligible amounts.

After a re-gen, I read 6705 on the Fleck display. With a family of 5 using water, after 13 days (just before a re-gen), I show around 3000 on the display.

I also am in need of a programming review of my Fleck 7000SXT, 48,000 capacity. I installed it myself, replaced a Northstar all-in-one tank system. I’ve been using the new Fleck about 5 months now. I am having the same issues as the original thread creator, some soft water noticeable but not like the Northstar. Soft water pellets are barely disappearing after 5 months.

I tested the water before and after the Fleck using a HACH Hardness test kit. I show 14 grains/GAL before the softener, 11 grains/GAL at the kitchen faucet. I had the water tested twice for iron – both showed negligible amounts.

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Have you checked for a salt bridge? Try temporarily removing enough salt pellets so that you can see the water and can be sure there is solid salt in the brine.

The capacity setting should be 40 and not 48. Also, what size brine flow control do you have? If it's .25 GPM than you are only using 9 lbs of salt per regen when you should be using more. You have the hardness setting at 7 but yet you have tested it at 14 before the softener.